The AL wild card is a siren’s call beckoning teams not to give up, to go for it.

The White Sox sweep a four-game series from the Indians and suddenly they are just five games out of the second wild card. Maybe trading Jeff Samardzija is the wrong thing to do. Heck, those Indians are only 6 1/2 games out.

But this may be the wrong way to look at it. Even with the sweep, the White Sox still were only 46-50. And so the key number to look at for these wild card “contenders” when it comes to deciding whether to buy or sell at the deadline is not games back, but 88.

As in wins. The two-wild-card format has been in use the past three seasons, and the fewest victories for the second wild card has been 88. Going into Monday, Minnesota was in the second wild card spot, on pace to win 87.75 games. Now, the Twins are seen as vulnerable, so that motivates clubs to perhaps act bolder than their records say they should.

But history doesn’t.

If there had been a second wild card ever year from 2006-14, only once – 2008 in the AL – would even the second wild card have qualified with fewer than 88 wins. It would have been 86. There are other outlier seasons such as 2005, when 83 wins would have been the second wild card in the NL, and 1996, when 83 also would have been good enough in the NL (research done by Ross Insana of MLB Network).

However, should a team such as the White Sox hold onto Samardzija in hopes this is that kind of year?

The Blue Jays, Orioles, Rays, Tigers, Rangers and White Sox finished the weekend between three and five games out of the second wild card and between .500 (Toronto) and four games under (Chicago). Teams that have played between .479 and .500 ball for 60 percent of the season would have to play between .612 (Blue Jays) to .636 (White Sox) over the final 40 percent to get to 88 wins.

Again, it may be that 87 or 85 wins is enough. But it is going to take considerably better than any of these teams have played to — best case — be the visiting team in a one-and-done wild-card game.